Lynn Shelton knows a thing or two about being a creative type in Seattle trying to catch a big break. For years the actress, writer, and director toiled in the Pacific Northwest metropolis, with her projects failing to attract attention beyond the indie film festival circuit. That all changed with Humpday, which won her an Independent Spirit Award and newfound acclaim. Since then, she's directed an episode of Mad Men and filmed a yet-to-be-named movie featuring Emily Blunt, but the project that's nearest to her heart is the MTV reality-based web series $5 Cover Seattle, which begins airing online today. The 12-part show follows 13 local bands (and their beards—seriously, Seattle has some hirsute fellows) as they flirt, fight, and rock out. Just how biographical is the series? You'll have to tune in to find out.

ELLE: Did you ever imagine that you'd be working on a project for MTV?LS: No! Not in a million years. I've been around for a while, so when MTV started it was a novelty. Strangely enough, I am married to an ex-MTV VJ, so I have an even weirder relationship [to the station] than others.

ELLE: Was that how $5 Cover Seattle came about?LS: No, what happened was I was at Sundance in 2009 with my third feature film, Humpday, and a couple days after the premiere I got approached by the executive producer of the project. I heard two things: MTV and web series. That really didn't do it for me. I think of myself as a filmmaker, [web series are] not what I do. And I didn't think I'd be able to do what MTV wanted. But they convinced me that it really would be a great fit, I really would get full creative control, and the more I talked to them about it, the more excited I got. I'm a big Seattle booster, and I'm really loyal and dedicated about it.

ELLE: How was it working with musicians, rather than actors?LS: None of them had ever acted before—well, Sean Nelson, maybe—but out of 30 or 40 people, the vast majority had never. All the scenarios were not so far out of the realm of their lives, [and] mostly I was just putting them together with their actual friends. A few of them were just naturals, and to see what happened when they actually relaxed into it and how their personalities were able to shine through, it felt really special. I have this belief that musicians are performers; even though they're doing a very different type of performance, there has to be some sort of comfort with being watched and put on the spot.

ELLE: Because this is a web series—with 12 short episodes—did it feel like you were doing something different, or was the process similar to what you'd go through with a feature length film?LS: I have to say that the whole endeavor really felt like a feature, because all 12 together add up to 80-something minutes. It's a little like Robert Altman's Short Cuts, for instance, [with] lots of different characters. I like just dropping in on people's lives, and hopefully the episodes are interesting enough that [viewers] will want to watch the entire series. The cool thing is it's on the web, so you can screen it in an interactive way. Links will come up on the side—if you're watching an episode with a particular band, there's a link and a map to where [they're playing] in Seattle. If you go to all those links, you'll find out all these things about the bands, about Seattle, about the venues, on and on. It allows you to experience it above and beyond what's on screen. In terms of what the future holds, there is so much overlap: People watch movies on their TV and TV on their computer, it's all so blurry.

ELLE: With all the attention that you got with Humpday and the fact that you're now working with some big-name actors, do you feel any pressure as a filmmaker to deliver with your next film?LS: It's really interesting, because I've avoided some of that by doing these other projects, like $5 Cover. It was really great because it's a web series and they are non-actors and it's such an unusual project—it's like apples and oranges—so it was really fun to throw myself into something right away. And then Mad Men aesthetically feels like the polar opposite of Humpday, in a lot of ways; to the letter you're sticking to the script, there's no improv, the camera is never handheld. And I had a great time doing that, and I'm not averse to doing that. So I feel like I avoided [the pressure], though maybe I'll feel different when it's premiering at a festival!